Professional Behavior Learning by Trigger Film, Self-Reflection and Expert Panel in Medical Education

Transgressions in professional behavior (PB) have markedly been on the rise in education, to the extent that a study on the medical doctor profession revealed that cheating during training is the best predictor of students’ performance after they graduate and begin working. This investigation was conducted to evaluate the implementation of PB learning by trigger film, self-reflection and expert panel in medical education. The study employed qualitative and quantitative approaches; the former applied to develop a model of PB learning while the latter to evaluate the implementation of PB learning with an experimental pretest and posttest control group design. As many as 109 first-year students medical students were randomly selected and split into two groups, namely the control group (n = 57) and treatment group (n = 52). Each group was divided again into five subgroups. The treatment group received intervention through three instances of trigger film, self-reflection and expert panel tutorials. A modified and validated academic integrity questionnaire was distributed to both groups before and after intervention. The collected data were analyzed with a paired t-test and the Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney test. Results indicated a significant disparity (p > 0.05) in answering the question “Is this wrong?” between the control and treatment group with a1.61 mean difference. However, the conduct of the two groups towards PB learning was not significantly different (p > 0.05) in response to the question “Will you commit any offence in the future?” with a7.32 mean difference value. Meanwhile, a significant dissimilarity (p < 0.05) between both groups was found in the answer to the question “What is the sanction level for the first offence?” with a mean difference of 0.5 points. This research concludes that PB learning by trigger film followed by self-reflection and an expert panel influences the perceived sanction level given for the first violation, but does not contribute to the perception that misdemeanor is a wrongdoing and to the prediction of future infringements. Further analysis of student perception showed that plagiarism is a prominent issue.